HOW TO MAKE THRILLER FILMS WITHOUT CLICHÉS

The wow factor is the basic and essential ingredient of a thriller film. But people can't feel it when a film is made on unfeasible clichés. A feel of freshness and novelty in a film will make audience thrilled and excited. And at the end of the film, the theatre lights will be on with an obeisance from audience. So if you want to make such a real thriller film, avoid the following clichés. 

1. A left handed killer : I'd seen that many left handed killers in films and thought that all left handed are killers or being left handed is a crucial feature of a killer. Some directors think adding this kind of bizarre substance will make the story more mystical. 

2. A killer with venegance but act as a psycho killer : This is a major blunder in a thriller story. This becomes usual and people inures with this cliché. A psycho killer doesn't need any motive to commit a murder and why he/she do a murder is just as a part of their thrill seeking behaviour. He/she is a psychotic patient with abnormal and unusual behavior where a killer with revenge is not a psycho. Ofcourse,  he/she have mental disturbances but they aren't psychos. 

3. A whistling or poem as a background music : We can't say to a director that don't add whistling sounds or poems as killer's background music. But a director should have enough sense to think about the relevance of the things she/he place in her/his film.

4. A sherlock holmes reference : A thriller film writer want to make her/his character with sherlock holmes references. The protagonist's prophecies become true and he/she find things in a detective mood. If the protagonist is a detective, I can agree with the writer. But if a police or psychologist or any other characters follow this path, it will be completely absurd. An unwanted presiding and audacity of the protagonist ruin the riveting ambience of the film. 

 5. Fake or divert the attention of audience : The director want to make a thrilling experience so she/he place a scene, may be a funny or romantic scene. Then the sudden occurrence of a fearful event cause an unexpected feel to audience. 

6. A mask is necessary for the psycho : In psycho thrillers, a psycho without mask is like a christmas without santa claus. The director want to hide psycho's face and reveal it in the climax as a suspense. If there is a convincing reason other than as a suspense element, then the mask wearing psycho is acceptable. 

7. Killer attacks or kidnaps protagonist's relatives : A good number of thriller films had this cliché that killer kidnaps or targets protagonist's friend or child or other relatives. I don't how it exactly comes into the family or friends circle of the protagonist. If the script demands such a deviation, it should be convincing in the making but most of the filmmakers do it just to create thrill and excitment. 

8. The killer is intellectual, maybe a doctor or educated : An intellectual killer is not a problem but repeating this in every film is awful. 

9. An outdated back story for killer : A back story with tragic events is somewhat necessary to know more about the killer. But there are other ways too to convey his problems. The cliche is every such back stories are based on rape or murder. My request is there are traumatic events other than rape and murder which haunt a person's mind. Please focus on that events too. 

10. A clichéd climax twist : As I mentioned earlier, the director want to keep the anonymity of the killer. But it's indigestible to know that both protagonist and antagonist are same or antagonist is the friend or relative of the protagonist. 

              

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  Thrillers have a good market. But the emptiness in the story make audience desperate.  So if you want to make good thrillers, step back from the cliché formats. And I have some other tips to share with you. 

 FIVE TIPS TO MAKE A GOOD THRILLER 

1. Place a question in the mind of audience. 

Think about the films you'd seen. How was the director grabbed your attention ? It is through placing a question in your mind. The thriller film usually projects the question 'who', 'who is the killer '? In the entire story, police officials and protagonist conduct hasty expeditions for the killer. But some films had broken this cliche 'who'. Drishyam rose the questions 'where', 'where is my son', and'where were you on august 2nd and 3rd'.

 

  Bahubali, an epic drama film rose the question 'why Kattappa killed Bahubali' which coveted the audience for waiting it's second part. There are many other questions like 'where is the killer', 'how did she kill him', etc.  So you must identify which is the interrogation point or question and take audience completely into it. You can place more questions without making confusions and disturbing the totality of the subject. 

2. Build the emotional and humanitarian sides of the characters. 

   Many writers are eager to make twists in their story. But a twist without emotional attachment is nothing for audience. Films like Life is beautiful, American beauty, Departed, Mystic river and Taxi driver devastated and sniveled the audience just because of their emotional attachment with the characters. So your character's tensions and the perils happened to them will affect audience only if they could understand your characters completely. But you don't need to add unwanted song scenes and funs to relate your characters. That will be absurd. What you want to do is openly shows your character's strength and weakness, show their surroundings, how they act, how they cope up with their simple daily life matters. You can use any kind of emotion but the condition is, it shouldn't ruin the ambience built by the preceding scenes. 

3. An unusual scene placement. 

In Indian films, investigative thriller films have a usual scene placement. When a film get benchmark status, upcoming films will be a copycat of this film. Also, audience can easily predict the upcoming scenes and climax. To overcome this, you must have an unusual scene placement. This is the point where writer-director discussions and debates happen. A film is like a waterfall. Characters, their emotions, conflicts altogether flowing through the viewer's mind. But the flow should be sleeky and naturally exciting for the riders, I mean the audience. At every fifteen or twenty minutes something should happen in your story which should be able to upgrade your story to next level and excit the audience. 

4. Use most appropriate editing cuts. 

   I saw some thriller films which lost it's     riveting power just because of the inappropriate editing cuts. Or many directors have a misbelief that the editing style of the films they watched are best enough to follow. Before you take the film to post production table, you should have conviction about the duration of each shot, where to cut and how to cut to other shot or scene. You must have an understanding about the pace you need to tell the story, which way of cutting can make your shots intense and apt to the mood of the story. Especially, a thriller film needs an undisturbed flow of narration. Cutting to some unexpected shots and how much time you give to audience to understand what is happening in the shot are very important things in editing table. 

5. Make your characters, plots and ideas relatable to the audience. 

  Your film should have a universal appeal. That means people from anywhere on earth should be able to connect with the points you communicate. The characters and their life style should sync with the background you place them. Make it more real. Film is a fictional creativity of filmmaker but the more you make it natural, the more you can make it believable to the audience. When you make a police lead character, instead of looking to the benchmark films or creating non humanistic fantasy creatures, shape that characters from the people you have observed. Feel that your character is a human being, he/she have a soul and the character is completely independent from your influence and folklores. 

    

    There are easy recepies to cook up a thriller film. But it is always uneasy but possible to make a unique, riveting thriller story. After watching many derivatives of thrillers, I could understand the repeated conventional formats in thriller films. I hope the new generation filmmakers will change this trend and in future we will have films like silence of the lambs, parasite and old boy in our Indian films.